Real reason Kerri-Anne Kennerley quit I’m A Celeb

She talked a big game, but KAK walked out of the jungle after only three days – because of the one element of the show she couldn’t control.

Kerri-Anne Kennerley’s shock departure from I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! is even more of a surprise given the big game she talked in her final media interview before entering the jungle.

I met with Kennerley last week, days before filming for this season began, and found the TV legend quietly confident about her chances of withstanding the trials and discomforts of life on I’m A Celeb.

Instead, she walked within days, having refused to take part in two trials in a row.

Before she entered camp, Kennerley appeared confident she’d nail I’m A Celeb, scoffing at my intimation she might be too pampered to handle creepy-crawlies and long drops.

Kerri-Anne quit the jungle after just three days. Picture: Channel 10

Sure, a contract proviso meant she was allowed to bring make-up into camp with her, but that luxury aside, she said her daytime TV hosting career had been the perfect training ground for I’m A Celeb: “I have ridden camels, bulls, horses, held cobras, red-bellied blacks, been bitten by a ferret, been scratched by a lion cub...” she told me.

“I’ve abseiled out of a few choppers, flying-foxed off the top of a TV studio...”

So, animals and heights – check. What she perhaps hadn’t accounted for was an outspoken young reality star who briefly turned Thursday night’s food trial into a Married At First Sight dinner party, as she slammed Kennerley for refusing to take part.

Kennerley, MAFS star Domenica Calarco, Woody Whitelaw and Dicko were all tasked with devouring animal testicles to win meals for their hungry campmates. Calarco’s rage boiled over when Kennerley remained the only participant who refused to even take a bite.

Dom was in her element.

Kerri-Anne was not.

“Miss big contract lady, ‘Can’t tell me what to do.’ I don’t want your (make-up), I don’t want your Revlon 1989 lipstick, doll. It’s not fair – it’s not fair to everyone in there who actually tries,” Dom said.

“Why are you here, bro? Legit, actually, why are you here?” she continued, as Kennerley sat stunned, possibly trying to process being addressed as “bro” for the first time in her 69 years on earth.

Even hosts Chris Brown and Julia Morris were visibly uncomfortable as Domenica Calarco rounded on Kennerley, who clearly had not been anticipating a MAFS-style fight in the jungle.

Awks.

“I probably don’t have to answer anything to you,” she told Calarco.

“Of course you don’t! Because your little contract states it,” Dom shot back, clearly in her confrontational MAFS element.

“Literally no respect or decency for anyone else but yourself. I’ve never met anyone so selfish in all my life,” she continued.

From her much-talked about make-up clause, to her refusal to participate in challenges, it’s clear Kennerley wanted to keep some level of control during her foray into reality TV.

In Calarco, it seems she found an element of her time on I’m A Celeb that she could not control.

“If you don’t even try and (eat this), I tell you what, we’re gonna be like ‘We’ll evict Kerri-Anne,’ legit,” Dom threatened – perhaps forgetting that on this show, contestants don’t vote each other out.

“Trust me, I’ll evict myself. Don’t you tell me what I need to do,” Kennerley shot back.

And then she did.

Viewers weren’t shown the moments Kennerley decided she was leaving the show for good – but in her final scene, she returned to camp ahead of the other three, wrestling back a bit of control from the reality TV machine as she wrote her own ending.

Kerri-Anne says her tearful goodbye.

“I don’t see any point in eating a ball that could never have a result,” she told her campmates of her refusal to participate – surely a Kerri-Anne quote for the ages.

“The abuse was quite overwhelming,” she told them of her clash with Dom.

“To be called the most self-centred b**h she’s ever met, and the contract queen, time and time again...

“I’ve made a choice – and it was a hard choice, because I’d love to stay – but it’s never going to work. This just morphed into something that it shouldn’t have been.”

KAk's retelling of the trial had everyone gripped.

And as she left, a tearful Kennerley railed not just against Dom but I’m A Celeb itself, calling her treatment on the show “very unfair.”

“I got (selected for) three trials in a row. For god’s sake, a bit of space!”

In the closing minutes of Thursday’s episode, host Julia Morris dropped a telling snippet of information that will no doubt validate Kennerley’s decision to leave.

Announcing which celebrities had been voted by viewers to take part in the next trial, Morris shared that of the 13 celebs on offer, KAK had received more than 50% of the vote.

It seems Dom wasn’t the only one who wanted to watch her squirm.

I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here airs 7:30pm Sunday to Thursday on Ten.